Pokémon "Pokémon! I Choose You!" (found original Japanese airing of anime series pilot; 1997)
On December 16, 1997, "Dennou Senshi Porygon", an infamous episode of the popular anime, Pokémon aired in Japan. The episode was about Ash, Misty, and Brock trying to fix a nearby Pokemon Center's malfunctioning transfer system, which transports Pokemon from one Pokemon Center to another, and also save Professor Akihabara's prototype of the Pokemon, Porygon which was stolen by Team Rocket, with the help of another Porygon. While Ash and his friends were inside the system, Nurse Joy decided to send in an Anti-Virus to destroy the cause of the malfunction, which she thought was a computer virus, not knowing that it really was Team Rocket causing the malfunction, and there was some Pokemon battles occuring inside between Ash & Co. and Team Rocket. In one scene of the episode, the Anti-Virus fires missiles at them while they are attempting to escape. In response to one of these missiles, Pikachu shocks it, which blew it up, and triggered a flashing scene so irritating to the eyes that it caused over 700 japanese children to have epileptic seizures and motion sickness. Pokémon was taken off of the air for four months so the Japanese Government could investigate, and officially banned "Dennou Senshi Porygon" from airing .
Once the show finally came back to the air in April of 1998, OLM edited the previous 37 Pokémon episodes and slowed down the flashing lights, despite no reports of the episode causing anyone harm. The original cuts were never aired again and were a mystery for years. Eventually, the episodes from their original airings were shown on Hulu in Japan, which were taken by a subbing group #pokemon-originals on April 2, 2013. Since then, the sub group seems to have disbanded. Episode 1 was not uploaded because Hulu replaced the original version with the new one to include advertisements for the Wii U before the episodes were put on the #pokemon-originals website. As a result, several people are still looking for a copy of Episode 1 from its original airing, before the flashing lights were edited. There is some information about the original cuts, however, since a remastered version of Episode 1 containing some of the special effects from the original airing was aired on the anime's 15th anniversary. Also, a scene from Episodes 2 and 4 recapping Episode 1 shows a scene from late within it. How flashy the part is can be seen in the Hulu version.